Jimmie Houchin <jhouchin at texoma.net> wrote:
> Just for other outside information. Apparently the Python group has been 
> struggling with this issue. I normally don't read about Python, but 
> occasionally take a peek. :)
> 
> This PEP has been implemented and is in the latest Python.
> 
> http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel/whatsnew/node7.html
Note that they implemented the library so it requires an explicit
parameter for it to enter "universal" mode. That is exactly what I'm
proposing we do. This is not what CLFS does.

> Talks about the problem and how they decided to handle it for Python.
> 
> Personally, I'm for handling it as elegantly and transparently as 
> possible. I think that is what most people will expect. I understand 
> Daniel's position. However, Squeak is a high-level environment. 
I don't know what a "high level environment" is. Squeak applications are
able to provide convinient application level abstractions because they
build on rich lower level abstractions in the class library. I am
stating that the two abstractions "line ending" and "auto detect line
ending" should remain separate, so that different applications can each
use what it requires.

> Low-level options are there, but I believe most people expect intuitive 
> responses. I don't expect to open a text document written on the 
> platform I'm using Squeak on and Squeak not handle it properly.
We could change the default to be OS line endings - this is a reasonable
change. If you want your text editor to handle any strange line endings,
change your text editor to use an "autodetect line endings" mechanism.
However, the default should remain a clean "line ending" abstraction,
without autodetection as it is in Python, C and probably most other
general purpose languages.

Daniel